Texas…Now and Forever (10 page)

“Yes! No!”

A frown gathered between his brows. “Which is it? What exactly did you have in mind, Haley?”

“Well, I haven't worked out the exact details yet. I thought maybe you could distract Frank while I got the drop on him.”

“Right.”

The sarcastic drawl raised her hackles.

“Look, I came to you to help me retrieve my baby. Our baby. I didn't expect you to mount a full-scale military offensive that might get her blown up, for God's sake!”

Luke started to reply, but cut off whatever he intended to say. His head cocked.

“Something's burning.”

“Damn! The toast.”

By the time Haley had scraped the black edges off the cinnamon bread and plunked it down on the table, she'd recovered a measure of her poise.

“We need to talk about this,” she said with deliberate calm. “I appreciate that you feel the need to take an active role in Lena's recovery, but I won't let you endanger her.”

“You won't, huh?”

Thrusting out his long legs, he sprawled back in his chair and fixed his gaze on her face. Although she knew he couldn't see her, Haley felt the full force of that penetrating stare.

“Seems to me you forfeited your rights to dictate what I can and can't do for my child when you abandoned her.”

The warm, welcoming kitchen abruptly lost its glow.

“I'll repeat myself just one more time,” Haley said, gritting her teeth. “I did not abandon her. I had to place Lena in safekeeping while I went undercover for the FBI. I thought you understood.”

With a grimace of self-disgust, he nodded. “I do. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that.”

No, she didn't. Silence stretched out between them, broken by the sudden ping of the microwave. Luke pushed his chair back at the same time Haley rose.

“I'll get it,” she muttered, still ruffled by the hostilities that had erupted so unexpectedly between them. Retrieving the casserole from the microwave, she let it steam on the stovetop while she located dishes, napkins and silverware.

“I'm left-handed,” Luke said when she carried two well-filled plates to the table. “If you position the dish with the food at nine o'clock, I can eat without making too much of a mess.”

“Right. Nine o'clock. Careful, it's hot.”

The clipped reply told Luke she'd yet to forgive him for the attack a few minutes ago. Disgusted with himself for delivering such a swift counter-
punch to what he'd interpreted as a lack of confidence in his ability to handle Frank Del Brio, he waited until she'd seated herself to make amends.

“You were right, Haley. I shouldn't be making lists or plans without consulting you. Nor should you be working up some wild scheme of your own. We're in this together, with a single goal. We need to work together as a team.”

“Yes, we do.”

Her relief was palpable. Luke felt it clear across the table.

“I called Flynt and Spence and Tyler last night,” he told her. “They should be here within an hour or so. Before they arrive, I'll fill you in on what I think we can and should do, and you can give me what you know of the way Del Brio operates.”

“That might take a while,” she warned. “I've been gathering information on Frank and his cohorts for a year now.”

“Then let's get to it.”

H
aley soon discovered that Luke's idea of team-work and hers differed considerably. He was used to being in charge and making things happen. She'd learned to live by her wits and to operate alone. As a result, they spent an hour at the kitchen table alternately sharing information, brainstorming possible scenarios for the ransom delivery and arguing about the best way to handle Frank Del Brio. They were still at it when Mrs. Chavez arrived.

Startled to find her employer sharing breakfast with a stranger, the housekeeper's curiosity gave way to openmouthed disbelief when Luke introduced her as the long-dead Haley Mercado.

“No, it cannot be!” She gaped at Haley, then emphatically shook her graying head. “You're joking with me, Luke.”

“It's true. I just found out myself last night.”

“But Haley Mercado drowned,” the housekeeper exclaimed. “Right here in our lake.” She
turned a fierce frown on the intruder in her kitchen. “They found her body.”

“I don't know who that poor woman was, but I'm very much alive.”

Unconvinced, Teresa Chavez folded her arms and scowled. “You do not look at all like Haley Mercado.”

“I had cosmetic surgery. Around the eyes and nose, mostly.”

The housekeeper searched her face again, more intently this time. Haley saw disbelief give way to doubt, then to anger. Her scowl deepening, Teresa glared at Haley.

“My Luke and his friends stood trial. They almost went to prison because of you.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Haley wanted to come home during the trial,” Luke said, surprising her by coming to her defense. “Judge Bridges assured her he'd get us off.”

“Ah, Judge Bridges.” The anger went out of the older woman's face. “So sad about the judge. And about your mother,” she added, her glancing shifting once again to Haley. “It broke Isadora's heart when she thought she lost you.”

“It broke my heart to let her think she had. I'm just glad I got to see her before she died.”

The warmhearted housekeeper clucked in distress. “There has been so much death around Mis
sion Creek of late. So much sadness. And now that little child is missing, the one my Luke says is his. Ayyyy, if I should ever meet the woman who walked off and left such a sweet little baby on the golf course, she would hear a thing or two from me, I can tell you that.”

Wincing, Haley prepared once again to shoulder the blame for the scheme the judge had assured her was infallible.

“Haley is the baby's mother,” Luke said calmly.

Teresa's jaw dropped. “How can that be?”

He gave an expurgated version of their meeting two years ago and Haley's subsequent return after Lena's birth. Clucking her tongue again, the goggle-eyed housekeeper tried to take it all in. She was still trying when the intercom buzzed. Shaking her head, she went to the wall unit and pressed the speaker button.

“It's Spence, Teresa. Luke wants to see me. Let me in, will you?”

“Yes, yes. We are in the kitchen. Come around to the side door.”

Haley used the few moments it took for Spence Harrison to pull his high-powered SUV up to the kitchen entrance to brace herself for another confrontation. She didn't know how much Luke had told the hard-edged former prosecutor, but she sus
pected he'd greet Haley Mercado's return from the dead with something less than wild enthusiasm.

Sure enough, the look Spence sent her when he entered the kitchen could have sliced through tempered steel. Hooking his thumbs in his belt, he ran a hard eye over the waitress who'd served him and his new wife at the country club.

Haley returned his narrow-eyed scrutiny. Marriage agreed with him, she thought. Spence had always been intense and, from what she'd heard through Carl Bridges during her years abroad, had made a hell of a prosecutor. Since his marriage to a single mom with a school-aged son, though, he'd given up the D.A.'s job to become a private law consultant and to spend more time with his new family. The change showed in his face. The lines were softer, the angles less sharp.

“I hear you've had a rough time of it,” he said finally.

Haley had no answer for that.

“Luke explained why you disappeared the way you did. He also said you're Lena's mother.” A rough sympathy glinted in his brown eyes. “We'll get her back.”

She could have kissed him for putting aside the past and concentrating only on the urgent present.

“Thank you.”

To her relief, at least one of the two men who
arrived a few moments later appeared ready to do the same. Tyler Murdoch tossed a small leather satchel onto the table and gave her a slow once-over, much as he had when she'd approached his table at the Saddlebag last night. The taciturn, onetime mercenary made no reference to her supposed drowning, however, and said only that he was there to help.

Flynt Carson seemed to have the toughest time accepting Haley's resurrection. Not because he, along with the three others, had been charged with her death. But because the ruggedly handsome rancher had taken Lena into his home and into his heart.

In her cover as Daisy Parker, Haley had ached inside every time Flynt and his wife, Josie, brought Lena into the country club and showed her off with such love and pride. She'd also seen that they were as shattered as Haley herself when the baby was kidnapped from their ranch four months ago. She fully expected Flynt to lay into her now for setting him and Josie up for that kind of pain. The regret she saw in his piercing blue eyes surprised her.

“You could have trusted us, Haley. Luke and I and the others would have helped you, both when you needed to escape Mission Creek and when you came back.”

“I know I could trust you.” A lump lodged in
her throat. “You were Ricky's closest friends. I had crushes on each one of you at various times. I just couldn't let you—any of you—put your lives at risk.”

The brutal reality behind the statement silenced Flynt. Haley had nothing more to say, either. Shoving her hands into her jeans' pockets, she glanced from one man to the other.

How many times had she seen them standing shoulder to shoulder like this? How many times had she heard their shouts of laughter echoing through the Mercado house?

Luke. Spence. Tyler. Flynt.

And Ricky. If only Ricky were here! The Fabulous Five would be together again, guilt and blame forgotten, the past erased.

Maybe soon, she thought wearily. Now that she'd confessed the truth, maybe the five men could mend the broken links of their friendship. Maybe these four could pull Ricky from the pit he'd fallen into after Haley's supposed death. Clinging to that thin hope, she joined the group at the table. Teresa Chavez bustled around, serving coffee and the remains of her spicy stacked tortilla lasagna to the three hungry males before heading for the front of the house to make her morning rounds.

“Just to recap,” Luke said, “Frank Del Brio
contacted Haley at an FBI safe house a little past nine last night and demanded two million dollars for Lena's safe return.”

“Did the FBI get a trace on the call?” Tyler asked quickly.

“No.”

“Well, hell! What the heck kind of equipment are they using, anyway?”

“I don't know.”

“What kind of proof did he offer?” Flynt put in. “How do we know Del Brio actually has Lena?”

“We don't, at this point. That's one of the conditions we'll stipulate. He'll have to deliver visual, real-time evidence that she's alive and unhurt before we deliver the two million.”

“Aren't you going to negotiate?” Spence asked, frowning. “I hate to see scum like Del Brio make off with a cool two million.”

“Del Brio knows I'm good for it,” Luke replied. “He won't settle for less and I don't want to waste time with lengthy negotiations. I want to get the money ready so Haley and I can deliver it to the specified point at the specified time.”

“Haley and you?”

Three pairs of eyes switched to the woman at the table. Tyler asked the question that showed clearly in each face. “Del Brio agreed to that?”

“No. He told me to make sure there were no cops or anyone who even faintly smells of FBI within fifty miles of the scene or I'd never—” Her voice hitched. “Or I'd never see Lena again. It was my idea to ask Luke for help.”

“She figured Del Brio wouldn't consider me much of a threat,” he explained wryly. “She also suggested I could provide some sort of distraction while she takes Del Brio down.”

Haley braced herself, expecting Luke's three friends to become indignant on his behalf. To her surprise, they gave her plan serious consideration.

“She has a point there,” Tyler mused, tapping his blunt-tipped fingers on the weathered wood of the table. “The little contact I've had with Frank over the years was enough to convince me that he's an arrogant bully. He wouldn't consider you a threat, Luke.”

“If you play it right,” Spence added slowly, “you might just get within range.”

“That's what I'm counting on.”

Luke's feral smile raised the small hairs on the back of Haley's neck. His three friends wore similar expressions. They'd closed ranks, she saw. Their shared training and military experience, not to mention the hardships they endured as POWs, had sent their minds racing along parallel tracks. Luke called on that experience now.

“Think you can fix me up, Tyler?”

“I've got a few tricks in my electronic grab bag that might just surprise ole Frank.”

“Like what?” Haley asked. Her earlier argument with Luke had made her distinctly nervous. This one was adding to her uneasiness by the minute.

The mercenary shifted in his seat, obviously reluctant to lay out the tools of his trade. She leaned forward to make sure she had his full attention, as well as that of the other men at the table.

“Luke and I have already had this discussion, Tyler. We've agreed that we'll operate as a team. I don't want any surprises when we go to deliver the ransom. No wild pyrotechnics going off when I least expect them or explosive devices that might endanger my child.”

Tyler still needed confirmation from their unspoken leader before he'd agree. “Luke?”

“Haley's right. She'll be out there on point with me when we deliver the ransom. She has to know who and what is backing her up.”

“True,” his friend conceded with a shrug. “Okay, here's what I'm thinking. We could outfit you with a miniaturized phased-array scanner. The army's testing one up at Fort Hood right now. It's the size of an ordinary wristwatch, but the damned thing sends out high-intensity radar waves, identi
fies objects that fit certain parameters and returns a perfect signature.”

“So Luke won't need sight to track Del Brio's every move,” Spence put in for Haley's benefit. “The scanner will do it for him.”

Tyler continued to outline his plan. “I can also rig a special infrared laser scope that will lock on to a target and follow it. What weapons are you planning to take with you, Luke?”

“A SIG Sauer 9 mm. Maybe an ankle-holstered .38 Special, as well.”

Haley listened in a growing daze. They'd already moved so far beyond her original, half-formed plan using Luke as a distraction that she could scarcely keep up.

“What about explosives? I know where there's a stash of high-impact, zero-centered grenades.”

“No explosives,” Luke said swiftly. “At least not until Haley and Lena are well away from the scene. At which point,” he added, “there won't be enough left of Frank Del Brio to blow up.”

Tyler nodded. “Good enough. I'll chopper up to Fort Hood as soon as we finish here and get working on this stuff.”

Nodding, Luke pushed a slip of paper across the table in Spence Harrison's general direction.

“Spence, I need you to retrieve the money for me. I e-mailed Hoyt Bennington last night and told
him to expect you. Here's the authorization to withdraw the two million from my cash reserve account. Del Brio specified nonsequential bills, no larger than hundreds. Hoyt promised to have it banded and ready when you get there.”

“I'm on it.”

“Flynt?”

“Right here, buddy.”

“I don't plan to let Del Brio walk away with the ransom, but just in case, we'll have to tag the bills.”

“He insisted they had to be unmarked,” Haley interjected.

“What Del Brio wants and what he gets are two different sacks of beans,” Flynt drawled. “Don't worry. Tyler has a supply of some very interesting chemical agents. They can't be picked up by X-ray machines, light scanners or explosive-sniffing dogs. We'll treat the bills and, as backup, I'll also scan their serial numbers so we can send an alert through the Federal Reserve computers. If Del Brio walks with the cash, he won't walk far.”

“I don't know how much time we have,” Luke warned the assembled team. “Del Brio could contact Haley at any time with instructions for delivery. We'll counter with a demand for proof of life, which should buy us at least a few hours, but we'll have to hustle.”

Chairs scraped the floor as the three friends rose.

“Not to worry,” Tyler assured him. “We're off on our assigned tasks. We'll let you know if we run into any glitches. And just so Del Brio doesn't intercept our communications, we'd better use these.”

Unzipping the leather satchel he'd tossed onto the table earlier, he passed out what looked to Haley like ordinary cell phones.

“They operate off a secure satellite and send scrambled signals,” he explained. “The V.R.S.—Voice Recognition System—built into each phone restricts transmissions to only the person whose speech pattern the scrambler recognizes. Punch in 0-1-0-6 and say ‘Mary had a little lamb' to activate the V.R.S.”

Spence snorted. “‘Mary had a little lamb'?”

“Hey, when Luke called late last night, Marisa and I were, uh, otherwise engaged. A nursery rhyme was the best I could come up with at the time.”